A former acting attorney general criticized the FBI and Department of Justice for using a “heavy-handed” approach during the FBI’s Monday raid of Mar-a-Lago during a Tuesday morning Fox News appearance.

“It just seems to me as I know how these cases work that this was a very grave situation and a very heavy-handed tactic that could have otherwise been handled less publicly and more discreetly to get these documents,” former acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker told the hosts of “Fox And Friends.”

WATCH:

FBI agents carried out the raid because of classified documents allegedly taken by former President Donald Trump when he left office in January 2021, according to multiple sources. It is not yet clear what the FBI intended to find.

“We have crossed a line that I’m not sure the republic is going to appreciate long term and the American people are going to need answers to a lot of these questions,” Whitaker said.

Whitaker also discussed claims the FBI was playing politics in the investigations.

“There is at least a dozen whistleblowers that have come to Chuck Grassley and Jim Jordan and pointed out the politicization of the FBI and how they were putting their thumb on the scale,” Whitaker said. “For example, of the Hunter Biden investigation. Suggesting that it was Russian disinformation that was the laptop and not, you know, Hunter Biden’s records recording his illegal activities.”

The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.